In mid-2023, John B. Goodenough, inventor of the lithium ion battery, passed away. A lot of time has passed since the first tests by the American physicist and chemist, in collaboration with his colleagues. With modern ones battery which have achieved respectable capabilities and maximized safety, scientists are nevertheless looking for solutions capable of further improving current technology, taking into account above all the increasingly high market demands. Think about the stringent requirements that batteries for electric vehicles must meet.
According to the US Department of Energy, the demand for batteries in lithium ions could increase 10 times by 2030. Given this figure, however, the creation of these batteries requires large amount of water ed energy, with obvious negative impacts on the environment. For this reason, scientists are working to develop next-generation batteries that use significantly lower volumes of lithium.
Batteries with 70% less lithium using material discovered by Microsoft and PNNL
Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have used the service Azure Quantum Elements which incorporates advanced AI and high-performance cloud processing to search for new materials to replace or combine with those currently used in lithium-ion batteries.
With a truly limited effort in time (we’re even talking about a few days), experts have identified a material that could reduce the amount of lithium used to make batteries up to 70%. A truly exceptional figure because the large-scale adoption of the new material would not only reduce costs and environmental impact but it would make the batteries even more safe. Unlike current lithium ion batteries, which use a liquid electrolyte, the new ones would be safer by using a solid electrolyte.
It is true that batteries with solid electrolyte have performance inferior in energy transfer compared to those with liquid electrolyte. Even the newly discovered material does not escape this assumption.
While the aspects related to chemistry will need to be adequately weighed and optimised, the speed with which the team of experts identified the innovative material highlights the transformative potential of AI and cloud computing in scientific discovery. More details are available in this video published on YouTube.
What is Azure Quantum Elements and how it has helped speed up research
The Redmond company and PNNL scholars describe the result obtained as an extraordinary achievement. Azure Quantum Elements is a platform designed to accelerate scientific discovery by improving the productivity of research and development using workflows that take advantage of AI-accelerated processing and integration with quantum tools.
Thus, along a process concluded in a few days (using a traditional approach would have required years of work…), Azure Quantum Elements started from the analysis of 32 million inorganic materials potentially useful for future generation batteries by reducing the number of candidates to just 18 names, in just 80 hours. The filters gradually applied made it possible to select the “right” materials based on their stability, reactivity and energy conductivity.
Traditionally, the synthesis of materials it involves a long and laborious process, often hampered by a lack of information about failed attempts. Microsoft’s AI and HPC (high performance computing) tools have radically streamlined these steps, allowing scientists to focus on the most promising candidates.
Brian Abrahamson, chief digital officer at PNNL, emphasizes the vast applicability e replicability of the approach used to a wide range of scientific applications.
It will take some time before we see batteries on the market that reduce or eliminate lithium. But this is not the point. The collaboration between Microsoft and PNNL represents a true milestone in the acceleration of scientific discoveries, combining the power of modern computational paradigms and AI models specifically trained for chemistry and materials science. AI-based solutions, coupled with advances in computing power, suggest that it is possible to manage and solve global challenges more critical, in a short time.